


Isopropyl

by mcshrug



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, but then 3b is not a happy season so what can ya do, not a happy fic, warnings in notes!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 15:23:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcshrug/pseuds/mcshrug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d always known, of course, what he’s good for. What he hadn't known is that he was stupid enough to pretend he was anything better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isopropyl

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this because i couldn't sleep and i was angry and i don't know how i feel but
> 
> WARNINGS for: suicidal thoughts, references to kate argent, stiles being an asshole, sex being thought of as a method of payment
> 
> this is set vaguely after 3a (so after derek came back but before stiles started ripping demons apart with his bare hands i guess)

            “No,” says Stiles.

            “Get your head out of your _ass,”_ says Derek, “it won’t be that hard, and once we learn this we’ll be able to take them on.”

            “There is no _we,”_ says Stiles. The late afternoon light filtering into the loft casts stark shadows across his soft face.

            “There is whether you want it or not,” says Derek.

            “I’m not your beta.”

            No one’s his beta. “It’ll just take a little bit of time.”

“And how exactly are you planning on paying me for this?” Stiles drawls and then, very deliberately, drags his gaze up and down Derek’s body.

            Derek’s hands go cold.

            It takes him a second to move, to release the book he’s holding and let it thud to the table. There’s an itch crawling under his skin, and suddenly, he just needs Stiles gone, needs him out of his loft, out of the place where he sleeps and stands naked under the moonlight and lets the wolf claw at his skin.

            “No,” he blurts, too rough and too fast.

            Stiles doesn’t look too perturbed, just rolls his eyes and leans back against the wall. His shirt rides up a little above his hip, revealing a strip of pale skin stretching across his waistband. “Whatever, man. You can cut the _too good for me_ shit, you used to live in a fucking _train car.”_

Derek nods once, twice. Carefully slides the book so that it’s angled straight on the table. “Yeah,” he says, “I’ll be right back-“

            He’s not even aware he’s shaking until he’s in his room and fumbling the lock shut behind him, fingers trembling so badly he can barely tap the button in.

            He doesn’t want to look at his bare forearms, feels sick when he catches sight of the play of muscles under exposed skin, feels too big for his skin and too small for his bones and needs them _gone_ and his palms are clammy and when he fumbles the oversized sweatshirt from the back of his closet over his head he wishes, as he does every day, that he was _better._

            It takes him a couple minutes to stop shaking, and a couple more for the feeling of slick bile crawling up his throat to fade away, leaving only an acidic aftertaste on the roof of his mouth.

            When he gets back downstairs, Stiles is gone.

            The tremors come back. He locks the front door, locks all the windows, goes back up to his room and sits on the edge of his bed and _shakes._

He’s always known, of course, what he’s good for. What he hadn’t known is that he was stupid enough to pretend he was anything better.

 

            He doesn’t see anyone for a little while, which is fine. It’s a bad night and a bad day, and he jerks awake from nightmares with sweat beading on his temples and smoke in his mouth and he’s too hot in this stifling apartment but if he takes off his sweatshirt, peels off his jeans, sees his body naked in front of him he thinks he might claw the skin from his very bones.

            There’s a crisis. There usually is.

            Scott texts him. _Derek,_ he says, _problem, need help_

Derek thinks he can handle that. He thought- he thinks a lot of things, sometimes. He’d thought he could handle Stiles, likes the abrasive comfort of surrounding himself with pig-headed and single-minded teenage boys with overriding interest in teenage girls, likes knowing that they’ll never see him the way-

            The way Stiles saw him.

            So Derek miscalculated. It’s fine. Saying that it’s not the first mistake Derek has made would be an understatement. It shouldn’t be that big a deal, this realization, this knowledge that he’s just a body to someone he was learning to be a person around.

            It is, though. It’s like going down the steps in the dark and thinking you’re at the bottom and stepping forward and jolting down a level, one more left that you weren’t expecting and your stomach drops and everything lurches for a moment. It’s like that moment for days, left swaying and uncertain and shaky.

            Derek’ll get over it.

 

            When the crisis is over, Stiles is there. He usually is. There’s blood on his temple and on his bat but there’s a smile plastered on his full mouth, cracking at the edges where winter air has dried out the lush of his lips.

            “Haven’t seen you around for a while,” he says.

            He’s talking to Derek, and Derek wants to say _I said no,_ wants to see if he can do it again, but instead he just shrugs and says nothing. He does that a lot.

            Stiles looks at him. “You don’t have to go subverbal on me, man.”

            Scott says “Stiles,” and Stiles turns and Derek, the gratitude tasting bitter on the back of his blood-smeared tongue, makes his escape.

 

            Peter left a pamphlet in his mailbox, once. _Suicide for the Supernatural: How to Combat that Pesky Super-Healing! (A Simple Six-Step Solution)_

It was printed out of a Word document, filled with clip art images of cartoon wolves with pixelated tears rolling down their furry cheeks. Very tongue-in-cheek, very Peter. Derek wishes he could say he threw it out.

            He keeps it at the bottom of his sock drawer. Just in case.

           

            Derek has to go to Stiles for help, the next time.

            “I don’t know how to research this,” he admits. He’s standing in front of Stiles’ desk and trying not to look at anything, trying not to make eye contact or look at Stiles’ body in his soft clothes or look at Stiles’ bed where it’s rumpled behind him. It smells like warmth and paper and Stiles, and Derek feels like he’s suffocating. “I’m bad at searching, but if you could do this-“

            “You’re _so weird,”_ says Stiles. He’s reclined against the comforter, tossing a beanbag up at the ceiling and letting it thump back into his outstretched hand. “Like, ever since you came back- you _ask_ for stuff. It’s making me nervous. Is this a beta thing?”

            “Kind of,” Derek admits. He never was very well suited to being an alpha. “Maybe I’ve just learned people skills.”

            Stiles snorts in derision at that, accidentally hitting himself in the face with the beanbag. “Yeah, Derek Hale and his _people skills.”_ He rolls over, then, making eye contact with Derek before Derek is ready. “Why would I do this for you?”

            Derek freezes. Why would he? “You have before.”

            “That was when I _cared,_ man.” Stiles rolls back over, squishes the beanie between his fingers. “That was when I _gave a shit,_ but you know, right now I’m really tired and it’s a Friday and I don’t really see any good reason to do this for you when you’re a colossal asshole like ninety nine percent of the time.”

            Derek pinches the back of his thigh with one of his hands. He knows what Stiles isn’t saying, knows what he’s beating around the bush about. “Do you want to fuck me?” he asks. The words taste like sour petrol on the roof of his mouth.

            Stiles freezes. “What?”

            “Or I, I could fuck you.” His hands are starting to shake again, so he pins them against his thighs and keeps his gaze blank. He can do this. He can do this, he’s suffered through worse, he’s suffered through being alone for years and years and at least, if he does this, he can be _not alone_ for ten minutes or an hour or however long Stiles uses him. “I could just get you off, with my mouth, if you want. I’m- I’m good at that.”

            Stiles’ heartbeat stutters, spikes, thumps quietly under his heated skin as Stiles raises his head to stare at Derek, eyes wide. “ _What?”_

Derek doesn’t know if he can repeat himself. “I could.”

            Stiles stares at him for two, three sick beats before he says, “It wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

            It wouldn’t be the worst thing Derek’s ever done, either, but he thinks it might be the one that destroys him. He’s always known he isn’t worth much, but this- he’s not sure he can look at himself in the mirror, after this, because Stiles hates him and he _knows_ Stiles hates him but Stiles will do this, Stiles will use him for his body because that’s all he is, in the end.

            Derek takes a step closer to the bed. Stiles is watching him, eyes dark.

            “What do you want?” Derek asks. He feels numb, distant. He’s detaching himself, retreating in his mind to somewhere _not here,_ and it’ll hurt later but right now it feels like safety.

            Stiles’ mouth twists into a sour line. “Christ, dude, are you even _gay?”_

Derek hasn’t wanted the touch of another human being in years. He’s not gay but he’s not anything else, either. He’s the mistake he made when he was fifteen, he’s her and her sick touch and the spark of electricity he can still feel curling around his ribs on bad nights.

            He doesn’t answer.

            Stiles tips his head back, shakes it slowly against the pillow. “Go away, Derek,” he says. “Go find someone else to do your goddamned research.”

            Derek says, “You’re being selfish.”

            “No, you _asshole,”_ says Stiles, baring his teeth, “I’m saying _no,_ is that _so fucking hard to understand?”_

            Derek nods once, twice, picks up the notebook he’s carrying and leaves. He shuts the bedroom door quietly behind him.

            He throws up silently into the shrubs behind the Stilinski house, kneels there in the dirt and hyperventilates into a rose bush. Above him, the dark night stretches, and a half moon waits quietly, and Derek Hale, former Alpha werewolf, presses two clawed hands to the warm space in his chest where his heart beats and wishes it wouldn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> i'll probably end up deleting this but if you did read thank you!! and you can find me on tumblr on awerejeep if you want to talk about dylan obrien eating pretzels with me :)


End file.
